Find Me
by TheDuchessofFiction
Summary: Prompt: "Emma and Killian spending their last night before the curse hits together" and "Killian finding Emma in New York."


**For my CSSS, montanarosalie.**

**This is a bit of a combination of two requests. One "Emma and Killian spending their last night before the curse hits together" and Two "Killian finding Emma in New York." I felt like more angst is coming for this! **

Their last night.

Her last night with memories, his last night in this world, they went back to his ship, not even touching until they got into his softly, golden lit cabin.

The second kiss that she ever gave him wasn't as fierce at the first, yet it was just as desperate as before. And he met her in the middle, clutching desperately at the side of her face, pulling her into him, in a seeming futile hope if he kept her close enough to him, they wouldn't be torn apart.

Her fingers were quiet, already tugging at the laces on his black leather pants, as an internal clock ticked in both of their heads. He responds in kind, moving his only hand down to slip underneath her blouse and cradle her breast, his hook looping around her waist and moving the shirt up, with cool metal causing goose bumps to appear on the pale, snow white skin.

They didn't rid each other of their clothes quickly out of mindlessness, rather out of the time that was running out, both wanting to do feel each other just once, before she would forget it forever and he could never forget it.

The first time she even said his name, _his real name_, was in the fading light as he snuffed out the candle which was only just illuminating her naked form, and his to her.

Emma hadn't ever had love made to her. Once upon a time, she would have though that's what Neal had given her, yet, the movement of Killian, exactly in tandem with her own, giving her what she needed and more, taking only what she would give him.

He wouldn't have cared if she gave him the bare minimum.

Yet, she didn't.

So unpracticed, Emma wasn't sure if she was really doing it, though she was sure she was making love to him too.

In the aftermath, with him still on top of her, and her slim legs wrapped around his hips, with him inside of her still.

For a brief time she had forgotten the curse, though it hit her like a train as he rolled off of her, staring at her with such unspeakable sadness that the tears sprung to her eyes as well.

The last thing she said to him, in their last moment of privacy was three simple words. She had to say them once, before she forgot him and what she still wasn't sure she felt about him. "I love you."

Rendering him speechless, she slipped out the door for her goodbye, leaving him on the ship, only for seconds later he followed her, rushing to find her almost off the deck of his ship, and grabbed her from behind, turning her around and picking her up, holding her in his arms one last time in a tight hug and greedily tasting her lips, then letting her go.

When they all said goodbye, at the edge of town, he looked so lost, so forlorn

Like his whole life was being taken from him in a single stroke, yet his body still breathed. As he had already bid her goodbye, he still gave her a few parting words, yet his blue eyes told the real story, even if the words didn't begin to describe it.

"I'll think of you each day" He said, hoping that she didn't see his tears, though he could see his.

"Good." Was what they said in front of the town. What her parents heard. What was simply his way of telling her what he had been telling her all along.

"Find me." She said desperately, leaning on the door, the panic hitting her, filling her chest, forcing her breath out in gasps.

"As you wish." That's all he ever said. Yet, now she knew what he really meant. To herself, in the car, driving away she whispered to the last remnants of Emma Swan, savoir, sheriff, daughter, and lover,

"I love you too."

She really couldn't remember the last time she had been laid. With a child and no real 'friends' in the area, Emma didn't go out. She worked some nights, when Henry had his art class, or had a sleepover with a friend from school, but never actually slept with the men should would be eventually hauling to jail.

Yet, after two weeks of vomiting into the porcelain toilet in the Greenwich loft, she had to admit that she _might _be pregnant.

And the test had just confirmed it.

Like she had done just a decade ago, she was scared shitless, confused, and debating with a choice that could tear her apart.

Henry would never know if she aborted it. And she didn't even know one half of the child.

Yet, when she had gotten to the fancy clinic in Midtown, after dropping Henry off at school and been led past posters of babies being cradled by women whose faces just radiated with joy.

For the oddest reason, Emma felt like a knife stabbed her and a hug slammed into her from behind, heart wrenching, and heart softening all in one move.

In one way, she despised it, thinking of how the child could just replace Henry, and show him what his life could have been like, say he had been given away.

In a whole other level, she craved it. To have a child of her own to raise, which was nonsense, she had Henry.

She shoved it into the pile of 'things that still weren't right' when she entered into the clinical white room and sat down on the table, feeling so different from the first time she had been through with this, always with her ankles chained.

All those feelings that she had had before she saw the first sonogram of Henry, the same ones she felt now, changed at the exact same time.

She couldn't get rid of it. Or condemn it to the foster system, living a lonely childhood like she had.

Don't let him be a Lost Boy. Emma thought to herself, clutching the black and white photo in her hand, not sure where the phrase came from, yet maternal instinct was already assuring her that she was to have another son.

And she was right, when just a few months later she rushed home to Henry with the latest photo, with a soft baby blue background.

The kid was smart enough to never ask who the boy's dad was, instead pestering her incessantly about names. She finally cracked, buying one of those cheesy name books from the Barnes and Noble on Broadway.

Not knowing why, yet as she dropped the book on the counter and stirred her hot chocolate, her eyes kept moving, only stopping on a few, as though they were illuminated in gold.

First, it was David.

_Beloved_

It hit her like a hard blow, leaving her with a hopeless longing she couldn't explain for a figure she felt like she should know to hold her tight and assure her everything would be alright, with a desperate wish for a hug.

If the first had been a car hitting her, the second was a train, plunging a sword in the middle of her chest and yanking her heart out without any warning. She gasp, tears springing to her eyes without a reason.

_Killian- _church or of church charity.

It fit him, whoever he was, but it wasn't her fetal son. It was someone else, that she craved, like there was a whole in her heart that she just kept living with.

And the third didn't hurt, yet her heart twitched as she saw it, like a lost memory. It tugged towards Killian, yet at the same time stood in the back of her head as something else she just vaguely knew.

Liam- a version of William, protector.

It felt good. Not sad, but almost right like a puzzle piece snapping into a place in her family.

The dreams had started. She couldn't quite place them, each of them not really connected, yet each of them cherished and pushed away at the same time.

She saw a noble looking man and a pixie haired woman, crying at her, hugging her, laughing with her. Fighting with her.

She saw a woman, with flames in her eyes always threatening to overflow.

She saw a man with a crooked smile, plots dancing around him, and a soft spoken woman holding his hand.

Most of all, she saw a man with only one hand and a silver metal appendage on the end of the other, with a smirk and a raised eyebrow. He was sinfully good looking, with actions she somehow knew were up to par. She saw other things in him, anger, despair, and finally, the last one she always seemed to get right before she woke up, a look in his blue eyes that could only be described as "love."

And when she woke up she always tried to forget them. Yet, the child always kicked when she thought about it.

So Emma wearily added it to the growing pile of things that didn't make sense anymore.

Nine months after her and Henry had confusingly woken up in the middle of nowhere, her water broke in the middle of the night. Forcing herself to leave Henry still sleeping at home, and calling one of his friends' mothers, who promised to come pick him up in the morning and take him to school, she hauled ass to the hospital, the first waves of contractions hitting her as she pulled up.

And at 8:15 AM, curiously the same time that she had made that final push with her first, she did the same with her second, this time not even hesitating when the doctor asked if she wanted to hold him, cradling the still bloody baby in her arms, green eyes vulnerable and wide, as the baby instant stopped his cries as he lay in his mother's arms.

William David Swan didn't resemble his mother very much. Once she had nursed him and finally game him up to be cleaned up and washed off. With a head full of inky black hair and eyes that were the most startling shade of azure, the same shade as the seashore.

Yet, he had her chin. And the first time she had seen him, she felt still the slight bit of sadness seeing him, her memory almost blocked off. Still he looked so familiar, yet so unrecognizable that she just wordlessly accepted it, and shoved it into the monstrously large pile of things that didn't make sense…. Anymore.

He looked like the man in her dream, who she was sure was a pirate, for absolutely no reason.

Yet she loved him all the same, with Henry's adoration to aid her as she brought the baby home to their loft, not feeling quite right in the emptiness of it all.

Liam was a bit of a fussy baby. Now on a desk job for NYPD, she could work from home, balancing the crying child on her hip as she typed away and yammered away on the phone.

He was obsessed with her hair, tugging on the curls every chance he got. She would smile sadly at him and kiss him on the top of the head, the dull ache still present.

The morning that the door was being so rudely banged on, Liam had been behaving unusually well, now three months old with a full head of hair and a growing curiosity. Sitting in his highchair rather quietly, his small fingers grasp at the pieces of pancakes his mother had so painstakingly cut for him, squalling every time he missed his mouth. So in short, every time

Emma was needless to say, confused why someone was knocking on the door at 8:15 in the morning. Liam started to cry at the sound and she scooped the baby one and balanced him on her right hip, and slammed her palm down on the radio, running to the door, and swinging the door open wearing a confused expression.

"Swan." The man breathed, light flowing into his azure eyes and a smile gracing his face.

The same as her son's. Looking the exact same as the man in her dreams. The leather clothing. The scar on his right cheek. Even the same earring on the left ear.

With the dazed expression that seemed to glow, he only had eyes for her already (rudely) walking into the apartment. Emma stopped him with one hand, her brain processing a mile a minute.

"Woah, woah, woah, do I know you?" She asked, feeling as she should know this man better than anyone in the world, feeling Liam's hand weave it's self in her hair.

"I need your help, something's happened" He pleaded, looking at her with those damn eyes that made her look down at the baby and back at him. God… "Something terrible. Your family is in trouble."

"My family is right here." Her hard eyes meet his, as he looked at where she was looking at the baby. He looked completely shocked, rigidness filling his body as he kept look at the boy. "Who are you?"

"An old friend." Was all her said, the hope in his blue eyes shattering. "I… I know you can't remember me, but…" Almost bouncing with nerves, he leaned in. "I can make you."

The last words came out as another breath as he wrapped his arm around her head and leaning in her eyes already closing and meeting his lips with such familiarity, before reality set in.

Kneeing him in the groin, and clutching the strangely silent Liam even tighter, she pushed him out the door, panic filling her.

"What the hell are you doing?" She said in a voice all too breathy.

"I know it was a long shot… but I had to try." He groaned, leaning against the wall in the hall. "Tell me you felt as I did." He begged, as if sending up a prayer to the imaginary god of pirates.

"All you'll feel is handcuffs when I call the cops" She snarled, already slamming the door, one part of her wanted to knee him again and the other wanting to drag him back into the apartment by his lips alone and never let you.

"Look I know this seems crazy, but you have to listen to me. You have to remember!" He yelled, and she slammed the door in his face.

Now there was an actual person in the pile of the things she didn't know. A familiar man or a complete stranger, depending on which side of her brain was on duty, with curious blue eyes and looks that resembled her son so much….

Emma shook her head, returning to the kitchen.

"Who was that?" Henry asked with a frown, over his mug of hot cocoa.

"No idea. Someone must have left the door open downstairs." She answered, feeling like she was lying and that she should have let him in herself. She cast a look at the door feeling guilty, yet she brushed it off again.

Her family was here. Her two little boys. Here with her. Safe with her.

"Come on let's eat." She said with a smile, returning the baby to the highchair. Yet, she didn't notice how the child, who was usually so apathetic to other people, hadn't minded the man at all.

He was following her.

First, it was in the park after she had dropped Henry off at school and her and Liam were taking a morning walk, both all bundled up against the cold, he comes up to her, fierce hope in his eyes as he held a bottle out to her that she was 99% sure was drugs.

"Emma…" He had pleaded, as she stood in the middle of Central Park the wind whipping around her and he red coat drawn around her shoulders. "You have to remember." He had the same puppy dog stare that the baby in the stroller had. "Please."

The blonde cop had responded by screaming at him to stay away from her, and her family. The other cops who patrolled the park just managed to assist with that locking him in handcuffs and taking him away.

Yet, she was still drawn to him. When Henry asked what she did that day, she lied. He didn't have her 'super power' the one that had gotten her into the top police force in the country, yet her other son had looked at her with those familiar piercing blue eyes and wanted to know more.

And that's how she ended up outside of the 49th Prescient Police Station the next day, holding her son on one hip, and watched the man walk down the steps with a weary, hopeless expression on his face. However, it all melted away when he saw her, bouncing down the rest of the steps and stopping in front of her with a grin that stretched his whole face.

"Emma…" He breathed the same as he had greeted her at the door, and again in the park, amazed each time her saw her, drinking in her features. "What are you doing in, love?"

The word sent a little jolt through her, and she looks at his face again searching for a reason to mistrust him. He hadn't lied to her, and the most surprising thing of all, was the sincerity of his whole countenance.

"Can I trust you?" She said fiercely, searching his expression. He nods his head, an eager grin splitting his face as she did so, then he dug around in one of the many pockets in his coat.

He thrusts the bottle full of the swirling sparkly purple liquid and she looks at his skeptically.

"Please Emma." He said, shaking it at her. "You have to remember."

"Remember what?" She spat, still standing in the middle of the busy street with the strangely dressed man.

"Everything." He breathed. "You don't know who I am but you feel like you should. You feel like things are missing from your life. Hell, you don't even know how you got your son, here." He looked at the boy with a tender, longing expression, again the resemblance between the two being brought to light.

"How do you all that?" She asked, stunned that he could read a that from one look.

"Open book, love." He said, holding the bottle out to her again. This time she took it.

For some reason those words had jolted something in her.

_She could trust him_.

Handing him—god she didn't even know his name—her son, she uncorked the bottle and looked at it for a second, before glancing at him.

His attention was totally focused on the child, tears shining in his eyes, with his arms cradling the boy's body as he ran his only hand over the child's face.

"Drink only a sip, love." He said, finally feeling her stare on him, looking up at her with a watery smile. "The other is Henry's."

She lifted it to her lips and closed her eyes.

The liquid didn't burn, rather than it was like trying to drink a tsunami.

She remembered abandoning Henry.

She remembered a town, Storybrooke.

She remembered people, dead and alive.

She remembered a curse, and breaking it.

She remembered her parents.

She remembered magic.

And most of all, she remembered _him._

"Killian…" She breathed, already falling against his chest, tears in her eyes, falling into the scent of rum and salt and baby…

His arm went around her so quickly, threading through her hair, she feared he had dropped their son, yet she felt the sturdy baby body between them. They breathed each other in for a second, neither wanted to let go, despite him being here.

He had come back for her. He had found her.

Emma yelped, remembering Liam, and pulled away from him, snatching the baby back.

She was a terrible person. This was his son. They had _a baby_. They had been apart a year, and the first thing she had done, when he saw the blue eyed baby for the first time, was slam the door in his face.

"Want to come back home?" She asked, hoisting the child back onto her hip and lacing their fingers together. He looked at her like she remembered David looking at Mary-Margaret after they had remembered, then smiled.

"Where you are, love, is my home."

And she smiled.

"You haven't formally met." She said, leading him into the apartment and sitting on the couch, motioning for him to follow suit.

"This is William David. Or Liam." Killian smiled again, the lines around his eyes crinkling as she held out the child to him and he carefully took the child in his arms, this time actually getting to see the babe for more than a few seconds.

"How'd you choose the name?" He asked softly, not wanting to wake his sleepy son, who oddly enough felt completely at home, like he had known all along that this man was his papa.

"I just liked it." She said, still taking all of him in. She wouldn't out rightly say it, yet she had missed him most out of everyone, without even knowing it. "Must have not been able to suppress the subconscious."

He looks at her, though he was extremely engrossed in just looking at his son.

"Why did you kiss me?" Emma asked, looking down at her folded hands, already knowing the answer.

"True Love's kiss." He said, in a melancholy tone, not meeting her eyes. Emma sighed, remembering the story her mother had told her hours before her departure from Storybrooke. How David had tried to get her to remember who he was, by kissing her.

"You know…." She began, putting one hand on his shoulder. "David tried to kiss Mary-Margaret, after she took a potion to forget him. Yet, she couldn't remember herself so…." Emma trailed off, meeting his lips with her own, cradling them, as she gave him everything they couldn't say, unless they were inches away from death.

She pulls back and looks at the father and child.

"He looks just like you." Emma whispers. "Can't see any of me in there."

"But, he has your chin." He smiles, running a cold ringed finger along the appendage.

"My mother's chin." Emma corrected without thinking. "Oh god, my mother…. You said something was wrong…."

Killian shushed her, as the baby began to frown at his mother's frantic tone and he got up, almost naturally moving with the child as he calmed down again. Emma still frowned at him, as she lifted the baby out of his arms and headed to the nursery, laying the baby down in his child and turning on the monitor. Emma took its partner and closed the door quietly, nearly slamming into Killian's chest.

"You need new clothes." She said. "Watch Liam."

She tossed him the white thing before grabbing her purse and coat.

"Wait, what?" He followed her to the door, holding the machine far away from him. "Emma! Why do I need new clothes?"

"So that you don't look like a mental patient playing dress up!" She snapped. He looked injured for a second, yet he had to admit that, in this world, she had a point. "And you'll be able to hear if he's crying the monitor, the white thing." She clarified, easing some of his confused expression. "You can sit with him, though if you want."

She planted a lengthy kiss on his lips, trying to make up for the ones all the ones they had missed.

In the department store, she just guessed his sizes. Flannel shirts, a leather jacket, a real black wool coat. Dark jeans and sturdy boots, she basically just bought for her father.

Granted there was a bit more blue in the wardrobe that she chose for Killian, than if it was for David.

Later, when she stumbled through the door, already feeling the weight of the world going back on her shoulders, Killian was nowhere in sight. The white monitor stood resolute on the counter.

Panic rising, she hurried through the loft stopping to find the man fast asleep in the rocking chair in her son's room. He had pulled it across the floor, leaving scratches no doubt, but he had threaded his hand between the bars, letting the baby cling onto his pointer finger.

Emma had found that sometimes, it was the only way to get Liam to sleep. To hold him, to let him know you were there.

And Killian probably had figured it out too.

She let him sleep for a few minutes more, examining his face. He looked so old in his sleep, the endless worries of his life beating him down.

Though some of that weight had come off, making him look younger than the last time had watched him sleep, a soft smile marking his lips.

"Killian." She whispered, shaking him gently. "Killian. Killian!" She hissed and he jolted awake, ripping his finger out of the poor baby's grip, his eyes wide and confused as he whirled around, as if searching for his next foe.

Liam let out a helpless wail at the surprise and as Killian gained his surroundings, Emma picked the baby up, his cries quieting to an occasional whimper as he hid his face in her breast.

The pirate looked at her almost in awe as she unbuttoned her shirt, quite deliberately kicking him out of the rocking chair as she held the baby's mouth to her breast. His gaze lingered on that particular area, as if he had never seen a woman's breasts before.

"Are you going to keep staring or are you going to get dressed?" She asked in her business-like tone and he heeded it almost immediately, not before casting a look at her every couple of seconds between undressing across the hall.

He hadn't changed much, still with the lean muscular physique that she had always found so attractive.

Still he had issues with the clothes, frowning at the buttons and zippers with a furrowed brow. Emma laughed, putting Liam on her shoulder and beginning to pat his back as she walked over and helped him finish the task, zipping and buttoning up the jeans.

"I'm going to go pick up Henry, ok?" She asked him as the baby let out a burp and then a sigh, nuzzling into the crook of her neck. "then he can take his potion and you can tell me what the hell happened."

She didn't give him a chance to protest or question it. Emma ordered him.

"As you wish." Was his response.

That's what it always was.

She picked up Henry like she did every day, standing outside of the grey stone building with the stroller and a smile on her face, that seemed way too taunt to her.

He chattered all the way home, making Emma feel more and more sick each passing second as she thought of how she was about to cruelly rip it all away.

Still, they couldn't keep living a lie. She was sure he had holes in his memory, unexplained questions the curse just told him to brush off, but it still nagged at him.

He deserved the truth.

As he sat down at the barstool in the loft, putting his backpack in the chair beside him, and still talking a mile a minute. Killian wasn't in sight, though she knew he was around somewhere, no doubt putting the clothes away in rigid militaristic fashion.

The guilt rolling over her in waves, Emma started to make Henry's after school snack, cocoa and cookies, yet she started with the hot chocolate handing it to him and leaning over the counter holding the bottle that Killian gave her in one hand and the mug in the other sliding it over to her son.

"What's that mom?" He asked, after the first sip and making a smacking sound with his lips that his brother instantly copied, and held out his arms for some of the drink. Yet, Emma shook her head and instead retrieve one of the many sippy cups lying around the kitchen for the baby, who eager took it from her.

"Henry." She asked in complete seriousness, rolling the half full bottle between her hands. "You have to trust me on this."

He looked at her, the cocoa long forgotten, and frowned, patiently waiting for her to continue.

"Drink this." She said. He asked her why with only his eyes, before she nods and gives him a small smile, thinking how fucking shady this sounded.

Still he uncorked it and downed it, his eyes clouding over and the bottle falling onto the counter, rolling away.

"MOM!" He cried, tears running down his cheeks as her son remembered what he had been missing for a year.

Apparently, exactly.

"We forgot them." He whispered, reaching over to hug her. She cradled him for a second before walking around the island and kneeling in front of him, taking his chin in her hand.

"And we're going to get them back." She promised, casting a look.

"How did you find that stuff?" He asked, looking at the forgotten bottle. And the second question tumbled out following the first, when the youngest of the Swans gave a sharp exclamation as his sippy cup clattered to the floor. "Is Hook Liam's dad?"

"The Forest was crumbling, in every sense of the word, when we arrived." Hook said, finally seated on the coach after Henry had practically bum rushed him, regardless of whatever had happened, despite Henry's obvious disappointment that neither his father was his brother's father, nor that Neal had tried to find them at all, after a long awkward pause where Emma hadn't answered his question.

She didn't really want to, partly because she didn't want to see both the disappointment and the hope go back into her elder son's eyes.

Yet, he was still enthralled with the pirate regardless, after realizing he had lost a year from his beloved fairytales, one was standing in front of him, awkwardly shifting from one ball of his foot to the other, again training his eyes on the child which Henry was to be quite honest, his spitting image.

"I mean, the sleeping princess was a bit of help, sending supplies and such." He said, tentatively taking the mug of unfamiliar liquid off the coffee table and taking a sip from it, as the smell of baking cookies filled the loft, giving the once home a domesticated smell. "And the queen restored your parents' castle to its former glory."

A pang shot through her, just thinking about David and Mary-Margaret. They had missed everything in the last year. Particularly her whole pregnancy. She hadn't been quite alone this time, yet she still had wished to have had someone's hand to squeeze through the pain of labor.

"Yet, nasty creatures have taken control of the land over the years, when we were gone." Killian said, leaving it open ended.

"What happened to Mulan?" Emma asked, leaning down to hand Liam another one of the toys he had tossed, lying on a blanket in the center area of the living room, surrounded by various baubles.

"She joined a group led by a friend of ours…" He said with a wry smile. "A band of Merry Men."

Henry made a squeak of delight and Killian winked at him.

"Robin Hood?" Emma groaned, crossing off another Disney movie that would soon be ruined. "Is there any _other _new characters we need to worry about? What's the 'terrible thing' going on?"

Killian's grin faded, and Henry looked up at her, worry filling his eyes.

"The Witch of the West."

He said it so seriously that Emma couldn't laugh.

"Then why do you need me?" She said in a small voice, looking down at her folded hands. "Surely one of you heroes can dump a bucket of water on her and everything goes back to normal."

Killian started at the word 'hero' and looked at her incredulously, a raised eyebrow, questioning if she could ever think of Captain Hook as a hero. She responded with a soft smile of her own, and in her mind, thought the way too cheesy to ever say out loud words 'my hero.'

"She's a witch Emma." Killian said. "With magic none of us, not even Regina understands… If we could find the Crocodile…"

He pauses as Emma gasps, clapping her hand over her mouth and remembering the constant shady presence of Storybrooke was dead. Poor, poor Belle.

"Find?" Henry asked, a bit more clear headed than his mother at this point, for the strangest reason.

"We think he's alive." Killian affirms, with not a trace of his former apathy for the pawn broker. Emma got up from her place on the couch and stepped over the babe on the floor, performing an hopping sort of dance towards the kitchen, through the minefield of toys. "Belle prays for it, doing little else."

He pities the librarian. She was a phantom in the castle, her entire being devoted to the search, like he had been a ghost, searching in vain for a way back to Emma.

Though, Killian, just when he had given up hope, had found a way. The Beauty hadn't been so lucky.

"And how's… my dad?" He said in a smaller voice wringing his hands in his lap as his mother's forehead creased. Emma placed the plate of piping hot cookies on the coffee table, before picking up the gurgling baby from his blanket. "Is he… here? Looking for us too?"

Killian hated to do it. Yet, the jealous beast that had long since gone to bed, nye half a year ago, reared it's monstrous head. The pirate shook his head and the lad's hopeful face feel. However, Emma stopped in the center of the room, holding the child tightly, almost like an emotional shield.

With her memories restored, she hadn't wanted Neal to find them. Killian could read her like a book. She was scared.

Scared of him finding out that she didn't love him. That he wouldn't let her go.

Scared he'd make her do it, regardless. That he would force her into submission.

Scared she would revert to that stupid girl of 17. That she would _ever _want to trust him again

Scared what her parents would say. That they would brush off Hook as a fling and Liam as **only **her child and think only that she loved Neal.

Then she wouldn't have any choice.

Emma was so _easy_, it astounded Killian. After all those weeks, those months, that year, he would have thought he would have finally seen her walls.

And he did, yet looking at the hard stones, they were as translucent as glass.

"Then how did you get here in the first place, Captain?" The boy asked, snatching two of the piping hot cookie from tray, once again strangely upbeat, rebounding off of his melancholy.

"Well, lad…" Hook said, eyeing Emma again as the mother carefully sat down in an armchair, cradling the baby ever so gently with an almost never ending sense of whimsy to her hard features.

Though, they had never been hard to him. Even with a knife again his throat, they had smoothed over giving him a pinch of a laugh, a suggestion of a smile.

"I never was exactly home."

Killian didn't tell the exact truth. Even though he said what seemed like one giant metaphor to she was his home (though it was made her heart both melt and recoil at the same time, way too much cheesiness for one day), it had taken more than a dream.

He had ridden a horse.

Yes, an honest to God, horse, probably looking _better _than Prince Charming (aka Dad).

Technically he had rode the horse through a mirror, so painstaking procured by the two men, in secret until Hook was already saddling up to go.

A magic mirror no less. One that Regina had been extremely familiar with, saying she had used it before and had asserted her right over it in order to extract a promise from Hook to find her son, keep him safe, and most of all, bring him back to her.

The horse, however, hadn't lasted through the portal, breaking the glass and coming out on the other side, in the abandoned plain that had once been Storybrooke, as a sleek black motorcycle. The noble steed was currently lodging in the alley next to her apartment.

He had even looked around the land that the town had sat on, eventually turning up a dirty leather bound book, that he had sworn to be Henry's.

There was very little pirate left in him at all, if any as he bowed to the boy and called him, 'prince' to Henry's delight.

Though, Emma, on the other hand, felt like a terrible person.

She was selfishly horrible. She desperately wanted to keep Henry to herself. Staying New York, her sons were hers and hers alone. It had seemed like he had always been hers, even now, with her memories back.

Emma didn't want to let go of that.

She was self-centerly heartless. She was glad Snow hadn't fallen pregnant. For now, David and Mary-Margaret had only wanted to get their little girl back. She hadn't been replaced.

She was proudly dreadful. She felt the word 'hah' bubble in her throat when she realized she had beaten her mother to the punch. She had her second child first. Even with that secret in the cave, and the rush put on David, she had won.

Why did she deserve a fairytale character riding to her rescue?

Killian walked up beside her, snaking his arms around his, his breath tickling her neck as his lips moved against the skin. Still deep in thought, she leaned against the wood of the crib, frowning at nothing in particular, yet not looking directly at her son.

Correction: Their son.

"Emma." He breathed, nuzzling her neck with a sense of longing she didn't quite want to satisfy at the very moment. Maybe six months ago when she was having to deal with those stupid pregnancy hormones, but not now with the still slightly present layer of chub on her stomach.

"Shhh…" She hushed him, snagging his hand and leading him out the door, past Henry's room, where light blazed under the crack (he was probably dissecting his beloved book), and into her own bedroom.

It wasn't as barren as the one she had just slept in, back in the loft. A colorful quilt covered the bed and photos were scattered (more like covering) every surface in sight. Stacks of papers and files leaned precariously to their sides, yet the cursed Emma had found a solution to each problem, with pencils, books, and various baby things.

Killian took a moment to take it all in, neglecting to notice where she had moved his clothes, onto the armchair in the corner of the room.

"Are you sure you want to leave, love?" He asks her in an oddly timid voice, the thump of him sitting down on the bed heavier than it had sounded in her memories. Emma turned around from the wardrobe, in the midst of taking off her shirt.

"So we're picking up right where we left off?" She answered him with a smile too nervous to be real. They both knew it.

"Are you happy Emma?" He asked, those stupidly soulful blue eyes seeing through her so much that it scared the living crap out of her.

She whirled on him, the shirt off and on the group before she's kissing him, like she's wanted to do every time.

Sure, her life wasn't perfect. To define it, she would use the word "fucked up."

Yet, she didn't care about anything right now.

"You found me." She whispered, eyes glittering in the dark. "Of course."


End file.
